Celebrated citizen journalist Nick Shirley always wanted to be a YouTuber, and at 23 he’s already traveled the world.

But it wasn’t until he exposed mammoth Somali-led daycare and healthcare fraud in Minnesota – simultaneously exposing baffling legacy media neglect – that he became a household name and the fresh face of investigative journalism.

Yet, rather than laud or lionize him – as do conservatives and the cost-conscious – old-guard media disdain and denigrate him while some on the left even threaten him.

For merely shining the lonely light of his smartphone on barefaced public corruption.

“A bullet don’t have no name,” a gangster on the streets of Chicago warned Shirley, who now travels with security.

“But you’re not afraid of that?” asked The Lion’s Chris Stigall at a State of the Union media gathering this week on Capitol Hill.

“Well, I don’t want to be afraid of it, so I try not think about it,” Shirley replied matter-of-factly.

Where no news has gone before

Stigall commended Shirley for going where legacy media are loath to go, “because there are people that are paid a lot of money that aren’t willing to do what you do.”

“If you work for a mainstream media organization,” Shirley agreed, “that company receives millions of dollars, or it’s a million-billion dollar industry, so they have that backing, and I don’t.

“So that’s why I do the things I do, whether it be telling people to subscribe to my channel, become members and contribute $5 a month, or buy a hoodie, or check out the sponsors of my channel, because I don’t take any outside funding from anybody. I don’t work for a network.”

Making Shirley’s ascendance and prominence all the more astounding is his humble beginnings as a 15-year-old with an unrelenting goal of becoming a YouTuber. After a two-year mission trip for his church in Chile, he returned home with “zero dollars” and a dream.

“When I came home, back from that trip,” he told Stigall, “I worked for an entire month. I power-washed houses, and my goal was to make $10,000 in cash. And so then I then took that $10,000 in cash and used that to funnel my YouTube channel for the first three months until I could actually make a profit – because you actually don’t really make money on youtube until you can start getting the millions of views. …

“I’ve made a video pretty much every week since I was 15 years old. Even when I went on my mission trip, I was still making videos interviewing people about Jesus in Spanish. I’d upload those onto Facebook.”

“What it is today”

Contrary to appearances, even as young as he is, he’s no overnight success.

Indeed, before his breakout coverage laying bare the naked fraud in Minnesota, he says, “I had done videos on immigration, had spoken to illegal migrants that came across the border in the U.S. I did a lot of stuff on the election, have travels to over 15 countries in the past year-and-a-half making videos about current events. Had gone to the prisons in El Salvador, had gone to the favelas of Brazil. Had spent times in the streets of Kensington, Philadelphia, the streets of Skid Row, Zombieland and Cracolândia (Crackland) in Sao Paulo. …

“I’ve always had this inkling to make these YouTube videos, and now it’s kind of turned into what it is today.”

And what it is today is basically power-washing the powerful, exposing astonishing amounts of fraud in public aid, not just in Minnesota but also in California.

“His work precedes him,” Stigall said in introducing Shirley to his video audience. “He’s got to be one of the biggest figures in digital media today.”

Stigall asked Shirley what he makes of his newfound fame.

“Yeah, it’s been different,” Shirley said, “because before all this, people knew who I was as far as like my videos; I had a million subscribers on YouTube. But [the Somali fraud exposé] really hit all social media – on X, it hit on YouTube. It hit on all platforms.

“And it really did go worldwide. I’m getting messages from people from Australia and the U.K. saying ‘we have the same fraud happening inside of our country.’”

What propels him

What drives Shirley, Stigall wanted to know. Is it Jesus?

“Well, I mean, I have faith in Jesus, and so I try to live my life in a way where I please Jesus. But I wouldn’t say He’s the driver to go make a politically based video. Maybe He’s the one giving me the impressions to do it.”

In a more terrestrial sense, what drives Shirley is the state of the world – and actually doing something about it, rather than simply chronicling it.

“I’m super-interested to see how the world works and to see, like, what’s the pressure points of the world, and what’s making people do the things they’re doing.

“Because there’s a lot of things happening, a lot of corruption, and a lot of people are dying from things like the fentanyl crisis, or you’re seeing a lot of issues arise in the West from illegal migration. And there’s no other YouTubers that were documenting it and then also kind of sharing their own opinions on a lot of things.

“A lot of YouTubers go make these kind of videos, but they never actually – not pick a side, but they don’t ever try to come up with any sort of solution. They kind of just show it for what it is and never say, ‘OK, well, maybe there are people inside the government right now who are trying to bring about some sort of solution, whether that be with fraud or whether that be with illegal immigration.’

“I mean, I saw a lot of people get trafficked over the United States border. So, when Trump says he’s gonna close the border I’m stoked about that. I’m gonna support that. I’m not gonna support the other side that’s endorsing that [open border].”

Grassroots, groundbreaking journalism

Has he ever actually spoken to Trump?

“I gave a briefing to him at the White House for Antifa,” he told Stigall. “That was cool. I did that, and I got to shake his hand. That was pretty cool.”

Shirley’s parents must be busting with pride to see their young son putting the national media to shame and – are you kidding? – briefing a sitting president on a matter of national security.

“Oh yeah, they support it. They love it. They love it.”

Shirley’s grassroots, groundbreaking journalism, performed largely with but a smartphone and a plane ticket, is changing lives, Stigall notes.

“You’re exposing things that other journalists aren’t talking about. I think you’ve probably noticed that; people that are professional journalists are not covering what you’re covering, which is why you’ve gotten the attention you’ve gotten.”

“Yeah, 100%,” Shirley answers, “because this is the stuff that’s affecting people. Illegal immigration is affecting a lot of people. I think one of the reasons why housing is expensive here in the United States is because you brought in 20 [million] illegal migrants, and they also need a place to live.

“It’s basic supply and demand that when there’s less of a supply, the demand goes up, and so does the price. But now you’re seeing rents go down, which is good. But it’s so expensive.

“Keep going onward”

“I try to focus on things that we can actually control because we, as young people and just [the] population in general, we can’t control everything that happens in the government, but we can go after a fraud. We can expose what’s actually going on.

“Are we gonna be the ones writing the bills and stuff? No, but we can be the ones to show the reality of what’s happening, and then that creates an impression for the people here to make a difference.

“I just talked to a lady who just came up with a new bill to pass against the fraudsters because of what I have done. So that’s one way where we can do our part and keep exposing.”

But what about those nagging, haunting threats to his safety? How’s that supposed to make his parents feel? “They haven’t said, ‘Hey, easy now, you’re getting a little too much attention’?” Stigall asks.

“Things have changed. Obviously now the conversations are a little bit different. But no, they’re still very much supportive.

“You gotta keep going onward.”

And upward, it seems.